Good day,
XStream Trucking, a design and engineering company focused on connected hardware for the commercial vehicle industry, announced Thursday that its flagship technology, TruckWings, has been deployed for 45 million miles of highway driving, netting fuel savings of more than $1 million and reducing carbon emissions by over 7 million pounds.
Truck manufacturers have long offered static side extenders to help air jump the tractor-trailer gap. However, these panels do not fully close the gap, are prone to damage and cannot respond to real-world variations in weather, cross winds, truck speeds and gap sizes.
TruckWings is an active-aero device that automatically deploys to fully enclose the gap, reducing a fleet’s fuel bill with no additional driver actions or trailer modifications. This allows trucks to operate optimally in a wide variety of conditions, and fleets reportedly have seen their on-highway fuel usage decrease by 4-6%.
“Fuel and driver pay are the two largest costs for truck fleets,” said Daniel Burrows, CEO of XStream Trucking, in a press release. TruckWings, he said, has been tested thoroughly in extreme road conditions and “is the validated solution to the tractor-trailer gap issue.”
Did you know?
The food and beverage industry expanded its share of the nation’s 100 largest industrial and logistics leases in 2019, according to a report issued Thursday by CBRE Group Inc. (NYSE:CBRE). Food and beverage companies claimed 13 of the top 100 industrial and logistics leases, totaling 13 million square feet. The sector captured eight of the top 100 leases in 2018 for 8.8 million square feet.
Quotable
“CES 2020 was a curious event. The furor built around significant ‘transformational’ announcements at CES of previous years was in direct contrast to 2020’s show that was impacted by a number of external factors. The macroeconomic market, global political challenges and an uncertain consumer environment around the globe have really acted to refocus the industry’s attention away from ‘what could be done’ to ‘what should be done.’”
ABI Research: 33 takeaways from CES 2020
In other news
Hyundai’s hydrogen hopes
Hyundai has never sold trucks in Europe, but this year plans to put its first 50 trucks on the road in Switzerland. (Diesel)
Walmart takes private-label grocery efforts to next level
A new 201,000-square-foot facility in Thomasville, Georgia, will distribute meat sourced nearby to 500 Walmart stores in the U.S. Southeast. (International Business Times)
Uber’s fare-setting experiment in California could cost drivers
The ride-hailing giant is experimenting with a new fare-bidding pilot program in three California airports (QZ.com)
Tesla’s stock market run marks end of bull market, Ralph Nader warns
The former presidential candidate is among the skeptics who are questioning whether the company’s recent huge run-up in market value is warranted. (Benzinga)
Final thoughts,
Restaurant food-delivery app DoorDash is going head-to-head with Philadelphia-based goPuff in a battle to claim the convenience store item delivery market, The Information reports. According to the news outlet, DoorDash is gearing up to test a service delivering junk food, alcohol and other sundries, a niche also served by goPuff. The DoorDash announcement follows the news that SoftBank’s Vision Fund made one of its largest U.S. venture investments, $750 million, last year in goPuff.
Hammer down, everyone!
